My Favorite Reads of 2020

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Most years, I read 50 books a year. Each year, someone will inevitably ask me for book recommendations. You can always follow what I am reading on Goodreads but I thought I’d share some of my favorite reads for this year.  Maybe you need Christmas gift recommendations or are just stocking up for the next lockdown. Here are my favorite reads from this year.  

Stories of the Saints by Carey Wallace

Carey Wallace’s stunning new book, Stories of the Saints, recalls tales of real people who struggled through difficult times but held to their hope and faith. Gorgeously illustrated by video game and comic book artist Nick Thornborrow, Stories of the Saints inspires with accounts of supernatural strength (both inner and bodily) and courage of ordinary people who answered God’s call.

The book is geared toward readers ages 8 to 12, but adults will benefit from these inspiring stories too. The short format of one to two pages per saint makes it perfect for family devotions or school lessons.

The War that Saved My Life

This middle school book reminded me of everything wonderful about reading as a child. Getting lost in a book where grown ups did not talk down to you, where kids struggle but overcome, where kindness is found. My son, of course loved the book too.

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her abusive mother is embarrassed of her daughter’s twisted foot. When her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to the countryside to escape the war, Ada sneaks out to join him.
 

Dragon Hoops

I loved Gene Luen Yang’s other graphic novels, American Born Chinese and Boxers and Saints. I didn’t know much about basketball but thought I’d give it a try. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know anything about basketball. Yang’s story is about the history of basketball, the history of a high school and each of the kids who play on the team. I completely enjoyed it and it’s been a “go-to” gift this year.

The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded-Molly McCully Brown

Growing up with in rural Virginia, Brown often drove past the state colony and wondered about its origins. Living in another time, Brown, who lives with cerebral palsy could have been one of its occupants. This gorgeously haunting collection tells the stories of those who lived in the rooms through stark, sparse, yet visceral poetry.

 Places I’ve Taken My Body- Molly McCully Brown

Brown writes about faith through the lens of her broken body. Brown lives with Cerebral Palsy and these 18 essays never let you forget the struggles of the body but also how to thrive within limitations. It is a exquisite book.

Christiana Peterson Awakened by Death: Life-Giving Lessons from the Mystics-

If you have read enough of my writing you will seen that I am obsessed with death. Not in a morbid way but that reflect on Memento Mori, “know that you will die, so that you will live well” often. Peterson does too. In this book, she how our culture is so far removed from death, that we fear it more. She hopes by embracing its mystery, we can live fuller lives. I say yes!

Peter Schjeldahl’s Let’s See

Schjeldahl has been the art writer for the New Yorker for years. This is a collection of his best articles. When we cannot go to museums, this is the next best thing as Schjeldahl’s writing brings the art to life in your mind’s eye. I am taking notes.

Corrie Ten Boom-The Hiding Place

Reread this book as fortitude during tough times. I was struck by her ability to know herself and find joy, beauty and give kindness even in the midst of a concentration camp. I want that faith.

Long River of Song-Brian Doyle

In Brian Doyle I found the kindred spirit I had been searching for. Like me, he found God in the ordinary. This is a collection of some of his best. You will be absolutely encouraged and inspired to read it.

Pete Hamill’s A Drinking Life

I’ve enjoyed Hamill’s presence in documentaries such as Ric Burns’s New York and wanted to read one of his books. In this memoir, Hamill learned early that drinking was an essential part of being a man in Brooklyn during the 20th century. It is a bittersweet story of love, friendship, family and religion.

John Cheever Short Stories

If I was on a deserted island and could only bring one book besides the Bible, this is the one I’d bring. Don Draper introduced me to John Cheever. The television series, Mad Men, about a 1960’s Manhattan ad man with a secret past, nursed a particular wound for me. I watched with a fervor akin to religion conviction, as if a revealed insight into Draper’s psyche would heal my own. Mad Men creator, Matthew Wiener, made it clear it was John Cheever’s tone of “irony and comedy and pain” he tried to emulate on the series. Cheever told stories “to give shape to the unhappiness” in his family. The stories of John Cheever are teeming with summer houses, Ivy League graduates and weeknight cocktail parties not unlike Mad Men but like the television series, there is always a subtext.